Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ Is a claim for professional services rendered to a bankrupt corporation in the preparation of a general assignment, valid under the law of Tennessee, entitled to be paid as a preferential claim out of the estate of the corporation in the hands of a trustee in bankruptcy, when the corporation was adjudicated an involuntary bankrupt within four months after the making of the assignment, and the assignment set aside as in contravention of the bankrupt law? ”

“ Of course the object of this contention is to uphold the provision in favor of the appellants for preparing the deed and for service to be rendered the assignee. It does not seem to us to need much argument to show that this artificial refinement cannot stand. If by declaring the assignment an act of bankruptcy, the statute means that the conveyance shall not be effectual against the bankruptcy proceedings, as is agreed, the natural and simple construction is that it means that the deed shall be avoided as a whole when the trustee takes the goods. ”

“ The appellants do not stop here, however, but argue that the avoidance of the voluntary assignment goes only to the administration of the property, and not to the title; that the trustee simply succeeds the privately chosen assignee in the administration of the trust under the deed. ”